I will concede the wrong plate defense (even though testimony said that the plate pulled up the same model car from a different year). Here's the part that bothers me. From the article Otto posted: If the Mother was telling the two boys to do what the officer says, why did Tolan arrive afterwards and start "manhandling" her?
you mean why did cotton show up afterward. cotton showed up blasting, he should lose his job just for that. my last issue, if they thought the car was stolen, why did they wait till they got to a destination to approach them? why didn't they try to pull the car over immediately. there are so many holes its ridiclulous
Stole Vehicle was a Car Their Vehicle was a SUV Both were nissans . . That is what they said on the news Rocket River
Honestly, This is really dealing with the wrong issue. This is a distraction from the issue at hand. An Unarmed man was shot in front of his own house for responding to an officer shoving his mother Gates - Harrassed and Arrested - in front of his own house Tolan - shot in front of his own house MESSAGE TO BLACK FOLX: Your house is not your castle and we can violate it at any time. 1. It seems that police today are the scariest peices of crap out there. Everything they see if life Threatening . . .EVERYTHING 2. That being the case they have taken on the ICE CUBE MOTTO: Better to be judge by 12 than carried by 6 - because the 12 will let you off!! Rocket River
no its not a distraction because its the crux of the issue. that's the profiling right there. you see two black kids in bellaire and you follow them for no reason. and later you make up some bs about putting 1 number wrong they pull up to a house, of course two black kids can't live in bellaire, and then the **** starts. there was no reason to follow these kids in the first place.
Yeah, got the names mixed up. Why did Cotton feel the need to rough up the Mother? According to the cops's own testimony, all she was doing was trying to get the boys to follow the officer's directions.
Wasn't trying to disrespect you. Sorry it came off that way. What I was saying is that the information regarding the license plate and the computer matching is easily verifiable. Don't you think that the DA could have and did have the ability to determine whether, in fact, there was a stolen vehicle one number off? Don't you think the computer could provide the information of what number the officer (incorrectly) input? Don't you think the DA would have done that research and brought up the inconsistency, if any? Pretty easy to verify whether he was lying. Prior to trial I spoke with both the defense lawyer and the prosecutor in the case, and I am aware generally of what sort of evidence both sides were offering, but I don't need that information to tell you that any ADA doing his job would have been able to contradict that officer if he wasn't being honest about the computer search.
forget whether you know exactly what evidence was offered up what do you think the odds are of that happening. Codell is correct, license plates go to dealers in bulk. I know, I worked at a fleet vehicle leasing company. so what do you think the likelyhood is of a cop mis typing a plate number and it happening to come up with a stolen car similar to the plate he intended.
and as rocket river point out, they don't claim it was an suv, it was a car that showed up in their search so its more likely that it was a car, and more ridiculous that they decided to pursue tolan if he wasn't driving a car. so whatever, I really don't care what happend in the trial, in reality, this is where this case should have fallen apart
I don't understand what the odds stuff has to do with anything. I spent my last post typing the reasons why, if he was lying about it, the lie would have been easily detected. If there wasn't a stolen vehicle with a plate # one digit off from the victim's vehicle, that fact would have been easily proven and would have been easily proven by the State. The fact is, they could and did look that up and weren't able to impeach the officer's story because that part checked out. Doesn't mean the rest of it was true, but that part, at least, was verifiable. And verified.
I wasn't at the trial. But that would have been a key case issue if it wasn't verified. It literally would have been the focus of the entire prosecution. Prove he's lying there and his credibility as to the rest of the story is shredded. I'm confident they covered that obvious base.
I'm with RRiver on this one. Good mistake on the car, bad mistake, profiling or whatever, if that was the only issue, then things wouldn't have been that big of a deal. The main tragedy is that the cop escalated the situation by "manhandling the mother and then shooting Tolan 3 times. For me, it's not the question of whether the cop truly feared for his life, but it is that he overreacted. One can fear for one's own life and still be unreasonable. Did the other cop see Tolan reach for his waistband? And why the hell would an unarmed person getting up to yell "let go of my mother" reach for his waistband as he was getting up? There was no gun, no weapon? And why didn't the other cop (Edwards) shoot Tolan? Edward's gun was drawn. Obviously, one cop was much worse at judgment than the other cop. I don't know what the punishment should be, but I wouldn't dare trust being around Cotton at all. Edwards was there first and HAD HIS GUN DRAWN. It is reasonable to see that if Edwards thought it was a life-threatening situation, then Edwards would have fired shots. The situation wasn't great, but it wasn't out of control when Edwards was there alone. Tolan was on the ground with a gun drawn on him. The parents were yelling AT THEIR KIDS. Cotton shows up, manhandles the mother, fires at Tolan...basically Cotton made everything go to hell. He's a terrible cop when it comes to escalated situations...at least in this case. I don't know if he's criminal, but he messed up big time, and people need to at least accept that.
look, I'm not trying to be a jerk, maybe i'm being silly by focusing on this issue, because you're probably right, it probably was verified. but until we both know that for a fact can you at least grant me that their story of why they were following them is unlikely
Basically! Cotton added NOTHING to this situation but Drama and bad judgment. He suffers no consequence. Nothing is learned. The Next Officer will use this as a benchmark on judgement in these situations. When in doubt SHOOT!! The courts got your back! QUESTIONL Why is this kind of BAD JUDGEMENT ok when cops do it . . but not when civilians do it? COPS are *SUPPOSE* to be Trained to deal with this type of situation. I recall that someone said . . if someone shot a cop on a NON KNOCK warrent. . then that person should be persecuted to the highest level. [Non Knock mean they just kick in your door without announcing themselves] but a Cop feels the slightest bit of fear. . .she can SHOOT with out reprocussions Rocket River
Oh, absolutely, on the face of it, the story seems unlikely. Doesn't make it untrue, or unverifiable, but definitely the odds were against running the wrong plate and pulling up a stolen vehicle. It was a very unlucky coincidence added to a mistake made (the first of many that day) by that officer. I'll also agree with what Kim said. I don't know that what the officer did was criminal, but I believe from what I've heard that at the least he acted wrongly, unprofessionally, and/or rashly that day.
I was pulled over under suspician of driving a stolen vehicle...same thing as above. I bought the car brand new, so it was never owned by anyone else..so yes...it does happen. I was let off after the cop reverified and found it to be my car.
I don't think I could ever be a cop, always having to make split second decisions that could cost me or another person his life. I've made a typo a few times, glad it didn't end in someone getting shot. I wonder if any of the posters in this thread were on the jury for this trial. I've been a member of a jury a couple of times, and I don't think it is a very good idea to try and form any judgments without hearing all the evidence. I was arrested once. I was not happy about being arrested, but I was very polite during the arrest, and I followed the officers instructions very carefully.
Can someone explain to me HOW Quanell X makes his money? Because whatever he does, I will become that for the Vietnamese community. You can call me Nguyen - X or Windex.
It's interesting the dichotomy between how minorities look at cases like this and understand the larger picture at work whereas non-minorities strictly try to look at the "facts" of each individual case without addressing the consistency with which these types of things happen to minorities. The unwillingness of people to accept and admit that there is a blatant bias against minorities within law enforcement is very frustrating and so is the fact that law enforcement agencies are largely unaccountable for the effects of this bias.
